AT&T reports it invested $1.3 billion in Alabama between 2009 and 2011

AT&T Inc. reports it invested $1.3 billion in Alabama, including more than $700 million in Birming­ham, between 2009 and 2011.

The telecommunications giant said the investment was in both its wire­less and wireline networks, with the focus on improving the company's mobile broadband coverage and the overall performance of its networks.

The company didn't provide a fig­ure for its Alabama investment in 2011.

"Our goal is to deliver a network ex­perience that mobilizes everything for customers," said Fred McCallum, president of AT&T Alabama. "A lot of credit goes to the lawmakers in Ala­bama who have made sure our laws keep pace with rapidly changing tech­nology."

Last year, Dallas-based AT&T said it completed 150,000 network enhance­ments across the country -- more than triple what it did the year before -- adding capacity and faster speeds and improving 3G dropped-call per­formance by 25 percent.

AT&T said it isn't finished upgrad­ing its network. The company plans to build or upgrade thousands of cell sites nationwide and will install addi­tional radio carriers at thousands of cell sites nationally, boosting capacity to carry larger volumes of mobile broadband traffic.

The company said additional ca­pacity is always needed to help sup­port rising mobile data traffic vol­umes, which continue to increase at a rapid pace. In 2012, AT&T plans to double its 4G LTE coverage, for in­stance.